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J.J. Green stepping up big in Georgia backfield

J.J. Green, who few saw as a college running back, was huge at Tennessee.

J.J. Green already was getting his mind right for his expanded role for Georgia before official word came Sunday that tailback Keith Marshall was lost for the season with a torn ACL.

“Just go to work,” Green said of his approach this week. “Execute plays in practice. Perfect them pretty much. That’s it.”

The nickname Gurshall was just about gone before the season when Todd Gurley and Keith Marshall didn’t embrace it. Now Marshall is gone and Gurley’s availability for Saturday’s game against No. 25 Missouri is uncertain due to a sprained ankle.

Georgia’s top tailback in their absence is someone who wasn’t even listed as a tailback when he got to Georgia as an early enrollee in January.

“We didn’t really think tailback,” coach Mark Richt said.

The 5-foot-9, 183-pound Green certainly stepped in admirably as the featured back Saturday, rushing for 129 yards on 17 carries in a 34-31 overtime win against Tennessee, a game in which Gurley watched from the sidelines and Marshall went out in the first quarter.

“Everybody I knew seemed to be calling,” said Jeff Herron, who coached Green at Camden County in Kingsland, Georgia, and is now in his first year at Prince Avenue Christian in Bogart.

Green always considered himself a running back and considered that his natural position.

“I grew up playing running back at the age of 7,” Green said. “I was always a running back just playing a different position.”

Green was listed as an athlete by Georgia after he was one of 13 early enrollees. Most schools recruited the three-star prospect simply as “a football player,” Herron said. Florida and Georgia Tech were among his other suitors.

Georgia coaches viewed him as either a cornerback or wide receiver, Richt said.

“We kind of saw a need in the spring and he was willing to do it and he learned it and he actually was pretty darn good at it in the spring, so we feel like he’s found a good home.”